Personality tests and type indicators are more prevalent in human life. These tests and indicators lead to self-understanding and adaptation to life personally and in culture and society. Human values are the guides to behaviour that can lead to well being and harmony, human fulfilment and flourishing. We look to both the five human values and personality tests and their impact.
The values that lead to human flourishing and true humanness are the five human values of Truth, Right Conduct, Love, Peace and Non-violence. These values are timeless, found in all cultures and all faiths. They are universal, inherent in all human beings, and intertwined with the cultural and spiritual aspects of life. Human values make life worthwhile, noble, and excellent. There is a wide variety of human values found in varying degrees in all societies, religious traditions, and civilisations. While different societies have different socio-cultural and value orientations, five basic human values are relevant to all of humanity.
The Five Human Values
Truth is the basis of the Universe and all other values. All the worlds rest on truth, it resides in all times, time past, time present and time future. As such, it is an eternal value, innate, knowable by all, and able to be elicited from within. Right conduct is the nature of all life, and is con-natural to humans. Right conduct leads to freedom, expansion, gracefulness. Peace is that equilibrium and homoeostasis that is manifest when we are living with an attitude of peace and peacefulness to all that we deal with, all that exists within and around us. Love is the beginning and end of life and is inherent in every birth. Love behaves like the golden rule: we do unto others what we would like done to ourselves. Non-violence in thought, word and action is the fruit of living with Truth, Right Conduct, Peace and Love. What is the relation of values to personality type? First, we look to personality type and what it offers.
Personality Type
Personality type is frequently derived from self-reporting tests that advise us of our preferences. For example, there is the 16 Personality test, among other scales of personality type. The personality scales often lead to greater self-understanding, particularly handing us a grasp on the important relationships in our lives, the workplace, the sporting life, and our relaxation. Our sources of energy, our preferences for gathering data and making decisions are revealed. This information allows us to play to our strengths, and developing the weaker, perhaps hidden parts of our personality. Leading with our strengths is highlighted, preferences for action and behaviour are indicated. What are these preferences about perception and behaviour?
Preferences about Perception and Behaviour
We mentioned earlier that action (behaviour) is based on choices which are guided by values. Values embody the highest good we seek, that which will (hopefully) bring us peace, satisfaction and an enduring worth and purpose to our lives. Our values make our lives worthwhile. The 16 personality test (sometimes called MBTI, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) tells how actions are based on preferences for data gathering and decision making. The preferred modes of perception and decisions of the 16 personality types are laid out. This – and other personality type indicators – explain human action and preferences on the basis of energy, desire, information processing and the decision making process. It does not explicitly examine the basis of choices, which have the five basic human values that are relevant to all of humanity. We take the opportunity to make a distinction between human values and the Feeling function used for decision making.
Human Values and the Feeling Function
The 16 Personality test reports whether people use thinking of feeling as their preferred mode of decision making. The feeling function is not based on what a person feels, but rather, on what they value, what matters to them. People who prefer using their feeling function for decision making look at matters subjectively and personally. It is a person-centred, value based way of forming conclusions. It is a process that – as Jung said – “arranges things according to their value”. It uses language such as “care about”, “matters to me”, “like” or “dislike”. So we understand the the Feeling function focuses on the welfare of the self (and others) and the worth of an activity to the self (and others). This is the processing that leads to decision making. It is not a process based on the eternal human values. It may well include these values, but human values are not the process of decision-making in the mind. Values are guides to behaviour and action. Their function is integral to well being and harmony, human fulfilment and flourishing.
What are Human Values? Human Values are those universal concepts, drivers of action which are found in all cultures, all societies, all times and in all places where human beings eke out their lives. The five human values – which can be found in all cultures, all societies and in all religions – are Truth, Right Conduct, Love, Peace and Non-Violence. These values are eternal; they are eternal essences, which elevate human life to its highest expression, its highest capacity. On the other hand, personality tests have their place.
Summary – Personality Testing and Human Values
Personality testing and type indicators uncover how energy is obtained (and expended) (or resourced and recharged) for individuals, their method of collecting information and acting on information by way of decision making. Descriptions of the personality types often bring immense relief and understanding to those who undertake the personality tests. This is not to say that individuals are trapped and bound by their personality type and preferences. These tests are meant to be a guide to self-understanding and understanding others. The intention of the testing process is self-understanding and adaptation to one’s personal environment. While each and every person has capacity with all the different functions and behaves in a broad manner as described by their type, this does not exclude nor replace the human values that lead to to well being and harmony, human fulfilment and flourishing. Personality tests and type lead us to self-understanding and understanding our world. Human values lead us to true humanness.
